


A Powerful Cost

by RadientWings



Series: Songs of Shadow (Elriel Collection) [5]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, Magic, Mutual Pining, Temporary Amnesia, Terminal Illnesses, also amren appreciation 2k18, but it's ok in the end... i promise, in which there is soooo much elriel angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 09:57:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15660888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadientWings/pseuds/RadientWings
Summary: Elain thought her visions were supposed to be a gift. She should have known that all magic comes with a cost. She should have known they would eventually try to kill her.(OR: Elain's visions slowly start killing her, but Azriel isn't about to let that happen.)





	A Powerful Cost

**Author's Note:**

> This one was prompted to me by rosehallshadowsinger on tumblr, who wanted to see some elriel angst about Elain's visions making her forget people. Hope you like this interpretation!
> 
> Also come find me on tumblr if you want! I'm radientwings there too ;)

It started slowly, as these things often do. So slowly that Elain didn’t know what was happening until it was too late. After all, what kind of faerie would ever think to expect chronic illness? Such things were simply not concerns in a land where magic could cure most ills.

But then, few faeries were Made like she and her sisters were. Fewer still were seers.

And no one expected the visions to be what was killing her. What was destroying her mind – her very being – bit by bit by bit.

It was in her fourth year as a High Fae that it started to become clear, this thing that was breaking her from the inside out. Her most steadfast friend in this new life of hers was the first to notice. Elain supposed it was because Azriel was trained to notice things, to report the unusual and look for signs that something was wrong. 

(Although a part of her had hoped, even then, that it was a sign of how much he cared for her. That it meant he felt something more for her than the friendship they’d shared for the past four years. But it was a foolish hope. Elain wasn’t destined for Azriel; she’d never seen it, never had that vision of happiness. So she pushed that hope away as much as she could. Azriel would find his own fated happiness. And Elain? Well, Elain would smile when it happened – she had to. She had no right to expect anything of him. Just because she’d said no to her mating bond with Lucien some years ago, didn’t mean she could expect Azriel to return her hesitant feelings.)

“Has that been happening a lot, Elain?” Azriel had asked when Elain struggled to remember what year it was after a particularly hard vision. (There’d been a lot of blood in that one, Elain remembered, a forewarning that death and destruction might be on the horizon if they didn’t take action.)

“A little,” she’d replied at the time, unconcerned. “It’ll pass. The visions can just be taxing.”

She’d had faith, back then, that it was nothing, that her bouts of forgetfulness would always, always pass. That the piercing pain in her head was normal, not a side effect of illness caused by too much innate power. She’d been naive. 

Azriel hadn’t. He watched her more closely after that, hazel eyes constantly tracking her, full of hidden concern that only those close to him could see. He’d seen how the forgetfulness became worse, how the stronger visions caused even worse side effects.

The pain after her visions started to become unbearable in the weeks following that instance, getting to the point where she’d fall unconscious suddenly, body dropping like a rock. It was only after the third time it happened that the Azriel cajoled her into getting the problem checked out.

They went to countless healers around Velaris, each one telling her they didn’t have any idea what could be causing her fainting spells, her increasing forgetfulness.

It was Amren who eventually told them what was happening.

Elain was dying, she said. The visions were killing her, though Amren was unsure why. 

The news hit Elain like a punch, painful and abrupt. Dying? But… but she was still so young. And she was a High Fae now. Surely, she couldn’t be dying through illness? Surely not?

But the truth was undeniable. As was her illness, the pain that constantly hounded her every step now, the visions she could no longer control, that came without warning and tore at her mind. Always of blood and gore and now even of past battles as well as possible future ones. 

Her control of them had completely snapped. And the stress of it was _killing_ her. 

Amren said they needed to find a cure as soon as possible, that she had no idea how long Elain had left but that it wasn’t long enough. So she and the rest of the Inner Circle went to all the corners of both the human and faerie realms looking for one. 

Azriel would have gone too, were it not for the fact that Elain’s condition was steadily worsening. She was forgetting _people_ now, even her own family. Even Azriel himself. So instead he stayed by her side, refused to leave her, sending his spies and his shadows out to look instead.

Elain couldn’t have been more grateful for his presence; sometimes it was like he was the only thing that kept her fighting against the pain, against the forgetfulness. He stayed by her every step of the way, nursed her back into consciousness when the agony became too much, was gentle with her whenever she forgot who he was.

It was a good thing that he stayed too, because mere days after everyone else had left, the lapses in memory became dangerous. She woke one morning – after a night full of horrific visions that she didn’t even realize _were_ visions – to find herself on a couch in a room she didn’t recognize. Everything was fuzzy and, stars _no_ , she didn’t know where she was. Couldn’t remember how she got there. Couldn’t remember _anything_. 

She flew to her feet in utter panic, tried to recall _anything_. But it wouldn’t come, it wouldn’t come. Even her name wasn’t hers anymore, lost in the fog that hung over her head.

A strange male came into the room then, huge and with _wings_. He looked upon her with worried familiarity.

“Who are you? Why did you bring me here?” she asked, backing away. She scrambled to look for something to defend herself with, missing the expression of undeniable heartbreak that flew across his handsome face.

He tried to approach, arms reached out like she was a skittish animal. She only scrambled back further, pressing herself against the wall.

“Don’t come any closer!” she shouted, heart fluttering, feeling numb with sheer panic. “Who are you? Who… who am _I_?”

The male stopped in his tracks, looking stricken, his hands – scarred, she noted – falling uselessly by his sides. “You’re… you’re Elain. Elain Archeron.” 

The name fell on her like a blessing, like it _fit_. A breath shuddered out of her, as she repeated it to herself over and over. _My name is Elain. My name is Elain_.

_Elain. Elain. Elain._

And then, with very little warning, a rush of memory came back to her and she was herself again. Elain sagged to the floor in relief, still leaning against the wall of what she now knew was Feyre and Rhys’ living room. She glanced up at the male still watching her warily, his hazel eyes so incredibly full of devastation.

“Azriel,” she let out. She found herself reaching for him, but couldn’t find the strength to stand. He went to her without hesitation, however, lifting her safely into his strong arms, cradling her against him with all gentleness. “Azriel,” she whispered again, hiding her face in the skin of his throat, ashamed.

“I’m here,” he told her, arms tightening around her. He sat down on the couch with her still safely secured in his embrace; she was practically sitting in his lap as she clung to him. “I’m here.”

She started crying, entire body shaking with it. She was so scared. So, _so_ scared. Because Elain knew then, in that minute, that this lucidity she was experiencing wouldn’t last. That it wouldn’t even hold out for the next hour, maybe even the next few minutes. She could lose herself again any second… she could lose herself _forever_ , only for it to end in her inevitable death.

Elain didn’t want that. She didn’t want any of this. She didn’t want all the pain, all the confusion. She didn’t want to see the grief on the faces of her loved ones.

 _Please, I don’t want this_.

All through her spiral, Azriel kept her grounded, one hand cupping the back of her head protectively while his other arm kept her close, an iron band around her waist. His wings surrounded them, a shield against all the world and everything in it that would do her harm.

It was his presence that allowed her to slowly return to rationality, to push away the panic and really _think_. She knew that her friends and family were working on a cure, working on a way out of this horrible death that was likely going to come for her. But she needed to make it easier for them, needed to do all she could to make sure that, even in her delirium, she would cooperate.

So she pulled herself out of Azriel’s arms for a moment, ripped a piece of paper out of one of Feyre’s notebooks and scribbled two words on it. She tore a small hole in it, before grabbing a length of ribbon from her hair and tying the scrap to her wrist. With that, she returned back to Azriel, sitting by his side this time, but still close; so, so close.

“Whenever I get like that again, introduce yourself,” Elain told Azriel, with an edge of desperation. She took one of his scarred hands in both of hers. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but please.” 

“Anything, Elain,” Azriel replied, his voice rough, eyes full of unfathomable sadness. “I’ll do anything.”

Elain nodded slightly before leaning into him, hiding her face in his chest, hands still linked. In any other circumstances, Elain would have been horribly embarrassed by her actions this past hour, would have fretted over it for days. But as it was now, she just allowed herself to take strength and comfort in her friend, this male who was always on her side. She allowed herself to rest her weary head in his embrace, to feel protected as his arms encircled her, held her close.

Cauldron, she _loved_ him, she realized. She loved him so _damn much_. She’d known for months, years even. Had slowly been bucking up the courage to maybe tell him, to take a leap of faith despite the fact that she’d never even seen the possibility of them being together in her visions before.

But now… now she could never tell him. Not broken like she was. Not when she was such a burden. Not when it would only hurt him more if he knew, on the off chance that he might feel the same. 

Yet still, Elain allowed herself this one indulgence, this small comfort of sweet touches and soft words. She was dying, after all.

There might be a small chance that she would live, but as it was now, she _was_ dying. (It was cruel really. Ironic in the worst way. For she had been given immortality only to have it ripped away by the very power that it had come with it in the first place.)

She found herself tracing over the words written on the scrap of paper tied around her wrist; it was a little bit of hope, something that would guide her through the fog.

Elain found herself having to use it much sooner than she hoped. Much, much sooner. Because, only minutes later, the pain returned to her head, invading her mind, bringing with it images of death and destruction in the past, the present, the future. Elain keened, clutched at the roots of her hair as she tried to make it go away.

And then she lost herself, passed out with the agony of it only to wake and know nothing. There was a male by her side, pushing back her hair from her face.

“I’m Azriel,” he told her before she could ask. Her brow furrowed; why did that sound so familiar? Why did it settle something in her chest?

In her fog, she didn’t think to fight him as he took one of her hands and lifted to her face, showing her a length or ribbon that was tied around, attached to small scrap of paper. She found herself reading it, looking at handwriting that she innately _knew_ was her own.

 _Trust Azriel_ , it said simply.

“Azriel,” she said, voice cracking from overuse.

He smiled sadly, continued to stroke her hair softly. “Get some rest, Elain. This fight isn’t over yet.”

 _Elain_ , she thought. _My name is Elain_. With that, she nodded and closed her eyes, sleeping away the pain.

Weeks passed like that, with Elain in and out of real consciousness, Azriel her constant guardian and protector as the rest of their family went searching for a cure. With each day, her condition worsened, until her periods of lucidity were down to mere minutes a day, until she was bedbound from the pain and the fever. 

Time ceased to exist for Elain. Everything came down to the visions that wrecked her mind, to the fog that settled over the agony. Her name left her more often than not, the scrap she wore on her wrist getting worn with how much she would trace the words on it. They were her saving grace during this time, allowed her to trust the male that was always by her side.

Until the day Elain woke up in more pain than she’d ever been in, but actually _aware_ of it and what was causing it. It was the first time she’d ever wished that she _wasn't_ there, that her mind was gone while her body was shattering.

“Elain, Elain it’s me,” a blissfully familiar called through the agony. “Do you know me?” 

“Az– Azriel,” she clutched at his hand, unable to see him through her tears, through the hurt that weighed down all her limbs. 

“We can save you. We found a way to save you,” Azriel told her. “But it comes with a cost. A powerful cost.”

But Elain didn’t care. Not then. She didn’t want to go. Not yet. Not yet. There was still so much she wanted to do. So much she wanted to _say_.

“I– I don’t want to die,” she managed, forcing the words out through clenched teeth.

Azriel’s hand tightened around hers. “You won’t. I won’t let that happen,” he promised. His grip started to loosen as he began to stand.

Panic raced through her; she tried to pull him back weakly. “Please, don’t leave.” _I don’t want to be alone. Please, I don’t want to be alone_. 

Immediately he dropped back to her side, this time sitting next to her on the bed. She felt him press a kiss to the top of her head, heard his wings rustle around them, a comforting sound. “Sh, sh. I’m right here,” he said, voice soothing.

She managed only to nod, unable to speak anymore as her mind continued to be torn apart. Still, she kept her clammy hand in his at all times, unwilling to part with him, her last connection to herself.

She heard other people in the room with them, heard them discuss what had to happen next. 

“We have her permission. Just do it,” Azriel interrupted whoever was speaking, the words seeming to come through water or thick cloth with how muffled they sounded to her.

Another voice, this was one female. Maybe one of her sisters? “But Azriel, you didn’t tell her about the co–”

“She wants to live. _Do it_.”

Suddenly, everyone seemed to move around in a flurry, only Azriel sitting still, staying next to her. It was happening, Elain vaguely realized. It was finally happening.

“I’m sorry for this, girl,” someone told her, before two hands grabbed her face with unbreakable strength, nails digging into her skin. And then foreign power invaded her – Amren’s, Elain knew. The other female’s power was ancient, undeniable… and much stronger than hers.

It tore through Elain, made her feel like she was burning alive. Elain was sure she was dying, was sure that the plan wasn’t working but was only killing her faster. She screamed. She screamed and screamed and screamed, a set of scarred hands the only thing holding her down.

Finally, finally, something deep in her was torn away, yanked out of her by Amren’s ancient magic. With one last tug, it was gone, leaving only the echo of agony, leaving Elain’s mind completely _clear_.

She nearly sobbed at the feeling but was too exhausted to even do that. She only had enough energy to open her eyes for a brief moment and look up at Amren, look up Azriel.

“Thank you,” she told them, before promptly falling into quiet unconsciousness.

She slept dreamlessly for the next day, only waking once to find Azriel still glued to her side, lying down next to her but on top of the covers like the gentlemanly courtier he sometimes pretended to be. Elain smiled at it, and fell back asleep shortly thereafter. 

The next time she woke up she was on a couch again, but Azriel was still there by her side, sitting in an armchair across from her and watching her with sad eyes. That confused Elain; she’d thought it was over? That they could be happy now?

But then Azriel explained just how they had to save her. 

As it turns out, Elain’s body was simply not made for the powers of a seer. She’d been born human, after all, and even the Cauldron hadn’t been able to grant her the right bloodline to be able to survive the visions. Most seers were born in the same families, Azriel explained; that power went back generations upon generations. It was why the power was rare now. Most of the seer families had been hunted down and killed off by various other faeries over the centuries who’d envied their gifts. New seers simply weren’t being born and, if they were, they never lasted… died young.

Foresight was an ancient magic. It wasn’t made for the faeries of today. Certainly not for a High Fae that had once been human.

So they had to do they only thing they could to save her. Amren went in and tore Elain’s Caudron-given power from her, ripped the seer in her away and left only the High Fae.

A powerless High Fae.

Azriel had told her there was a powerful cost. How right those words were.

He watched her quietly when he was finished, watched how she couldn’t bear to meet this eyes. What was she now? Fae, _yes_ … but nothing else, really. She was… she was nothing now. She could offer nothing. Elain had always known she was the weakest of her sisters – the weakest of the Inner Circle. But at least she’d had her visions to help them, at least she’d had _something_.

She felt tears fill her eyes.

Azriel rose from his armchair immediately, wings fluttering nervously as he crouched down before her.

“Elain. What are you thinking?” he asked, all softness. 

She wiped furiously at some stray tears. “I’m useless now,” she burst out, devastated. “I’m not a fighter, never was. And now... now I can’t even see. I’m just... I’m so useless. I hate it, Azriel. I can’t help you anymore. I can’t help you.”

And wasn’t that just the worst of it? That she couldn’t give any longer – that she couldn’t help Azriel as he’d so often and so selflessly helped her over the years. Her visions had been part of the reason they’d gotten so close in the first place, part of the reason they were friends at all. Because Azriel had been the one to guide Elain through them, and Azriel had been the one to interpret them and _use_ them to help everyone. But Elain couldn’t even do that for him anymore, couldn’t help him protect everyone.

Suddenly Azriel’s hand was coaxing her head up to look at him, his eyes full of pure, unadulterated fire. She’d never seen him so animated, so angry. He rose up higher on his knees, fitted himself between her legs, their eyes at the same height now, with her still sitting and him kneeling.

“Do you honestly think I give a damn?” he told her, voice quiet in its intensity. “Mother above, Elain, I would strip _myself_ of power if it meant even one more day for you to live.” 

Elain’s eyes went wide, shocked. “I–” 

“Elain,” Azriel continued, still cupping her face. “You are _not_ your power. You, who you are… you are worth _more_ than it. Especially to me.” 

“I– I don't understand. I thought–”

“When you didn’t even know your own name and still you clung to me... Cauldron, those last moments… I’d never felt such pain. Never. I can’t lose you, Elain. I don’t think I could bear it. I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I’ve fallen… I’ve fallen in _love_ with you Elain. Utterly in love,” he told her, voice full of awed wonder. But he didn’t move any closer, no instead he dropped his hand from her, pinning her place with determined eyes. “I don’t expect anything from you – I know you aren’t interested in that, not after Lucien and Graysen. But, I don’t want you to think – for one damned second – that I only care for you because of the power you had. It was _never_ that.”

Elain blinked, her cheeks flushed, heart thundering. “ _Oh_ ,” was all she could say, so completely taken by surprise.

Azriel… Azriel loved her? Was _in love_ with her? 

The realization made her entire chest feel lighter, made the ache deep in her gut dissipate, made the taunting feeling of failure vanish. Azriel _loved_ her. He loved her.

Elain could laugh with how happy she suddenly felt. Could cry with it.

But she did none of that. Only blinked at him. Because, honestly, how could she ever match his confession? What could _she_ say that would make him nearly as happy? Elain was certainly no poet – not like Azriel apparently was. 

Eventually her silence became too much, lasted too long. His open expression shuttered and he began to move back.

Elain shook her head at it, reached out to stop him, her hands cupping his face. She knew what to do now. She traced the strong lines of his jaw, the rounded tips of his ears, smiling all the while. Azriel met her gaze with confused hazel eyes, but there was hope there too now, quiet hope.

“Elain?” he asked, not even trying to stop her exploration.

Elain just shook her head again, before leaning her forehead against his, linking her fingers behind his neck. She smiled shyly at him, watched as his eyes shuttered close, his cheeks faintly red. They stayed like that for a long moment, just basking in each other’s presence. And then Azriel’s eyes opened again, widened when Elain slowly, _slowly_ leaned in to kiss him, soft and sweet.

“I love you too,” she said when she pulled back, though their foreheads were still pressed together. “I’m _in love_ with you too, Azriel. I didn’t want this with Lucien, it’s true. And… after Graysen… it was hard. But I have always wanted you. Ever since you handed me Truth-Teller.”

It was the first time Elain had seen Azriel completely taken off-guard. Then he surged back up to kiss her again, fiercely, hands _everywhere_ , like he couldn’t believe she was actually here with him. Elain melted into him, clung to him with a different kind of desperation than she had when she was dying. 

When they finally pulled back to catch their breath, Azriel was smiling at her, a big kind of smile that she couldn’t help but return. Cauldron, he was _beautiful_.

“I love you,” he told her, sweetly sincere. He traced her lower lip with his thumb, ran gentle fingers through the length of her hair.

“I love you,” she repeated, before pressing kisses all over his face. He laughed at that, joyous and deep. Finally she kissed his lips again, once, twice. Then she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, pulling his head into her chest, hugging him for all she was worth. Azriel went easily, his arms and wings surrounding her completely, big hands stroking up and down her back as he breathed her in.

“Elain,” he whispered, reverent.

 _Elain,_ she thought. _My name is Elain_.

She kissed the top his head, this male that she loved with all of her being, powers or not. She felt the length of ribbon that was still tied around her wrist, the scrap of paper with two barely legible words written on it. 

_And this is Azriel._

_My Azriel._


End file.
